Rewolucje 1989 roku. Schemat wyjaśniający

• Authors: Petrescu Dragoş
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The Revolutions of 1989. An Explanatory Framework This study puts forward a frame of analysis for explaining the 1989 revolu- tions in East-Central Europe (ECE). When analyzing the revolutions of 1989, one is compelled to address three fundamental issues related to their inception, unfolding and outcome, which can be summarized as follows: timing; sequence of events; and nature. In other words, one has to provide a convincing answer to the following questions: (1) Why those revolutions occurred precisely in 1989? (2) Why the communist regimes in ECE collapsed in that particular order? and (3) Why some of the 1989 regime changes were negotiated, others were non-ne- gotiated but non-violent, and only one of them was non-negotiated and violent? This study opens with a discussion on the problems of definition one faces when examining the 1989 events in ECE, and addresses the most significant similarities and differences between those events and the “classic” revolutions of the modern age. The 1989 events in ECE can be termed as revolutions, but a particular kind of revolutions, i.e. “postmodern” revolutions, because they were non-utopian, nonviolent – with the conspicuous exception of Romania, and were not carried out in the name of a particular class. The present study adopts a culturalist-structuralist approach and proposes an explanatory model that takes into consideration both the domestic developments and entangled histories of the Soviet Bloc countries over the period 1945-1989 in order to analyze the crucial issues of timing, sequence of events and nature of the 1989 revolutions, i.e. negotiated or non-negotiated, violent or non-violent. This author puts forward a general model for explaining these issues, which is based on path-dependency, agency and contingency. It is this author’s opinion that the 1989 sequence of collapse, i.e. Poland – Hungary – East Germany – Czechoslovakia – Bulgaria – Romania, consisted in fact of the demise of three types of communist dictatorships: (1) “national-accommodative” (Poland and Hungary); “welfare” (East Germany and Czechoslovakia); and (3) modernizing-nationalizing (Bulgaria and Romania). One can easily observe that the initiation of the 1989 sequence of collapse originated in the camp of “national-accommodative” communist dictatorships, where the 1989 revolutions took the form of “negotiated revolutions” based on the roundtable principle. The demise of the “welfare dictatorships” in East Germany and Czechoslovakia occurred through non-negotiated non-violent revolutions, and was influenced by the “negotiated revolutions” in neighboring Poland and Hungary. The modernizingnationalizing communist dictatorships in Bulgaria and Romania were the last in a row to collapse. In their cases, the emphasis on the “dynamic political stance” is crucial: the communist regimes in both countries perceived their party-states in the making as not completely modern and national, and therefore devised policies aimed at spurring industrial development and creating ethnically homogenous “socialist” nations. Drawing on the work by Ole Nørgaard and Steven L. Sampson, who in their 1984 study “Poland’s Crisis and East European Socialism” have explained the birth of the Polish Solidarity as an outcome of social and cultural factors, this author contends that the collapse of the communist rule in ECE was provoked by an intricate and sometimes unexpected interplay of structural, conjunctural and nation-specific factors.

• Publisher: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu
• Journal: Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość
• Year: 2011
• Issue: 2(18)
• Pages: 53-79

Contributors

author

Petrescu Dragoş

• prezes Zarządu Krajowej Rady ds. Badania Archiwów Securitate (Consiliul Naţional pentru Stu- dierea Arhivelor Securităţii – CNSAS) w Bukareszcie oraz wykładowca porównawczych nauk politycznych na Wydziale Nauk Politycznych Uniwersytetu w Bukareszcie.

References

• K. Kumar, 1989: Revolutionary Ideas and Ideals, Minneapolis 2001 H. Arendt, O rewolucji, tłum. M. Godyń, Kraków 1991 G. Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, New York 1993 R. Darnton, Berlin Journal, 1989–1990, New York 1991 S.N. Eisenstadt, The Breakdown of Communist Regimes [w:] The Revolutions of 1989, red. V. Tismăneanu, Londyn 1999 Ch. Joppke, East German Dissidents and the Revolution of 1989: Social Movement in a Leninist Regime, Houndmills 1995 T. Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China, Cambridge 1979 Ch. Tilly, Rewolucje europejskie 1492–1992, tłum. E. Żelazna, Warszawa 1997 T. Garton Ash, The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of ’89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague, New York 1993 T. Garton Ash, Conclusions [w:] Between Past and Future: The Revolutions of 1989 and Their Aftermath, red. S. Antohi, V. Tismăneanu, Budapest 2000 J.F. Brown, Surge to Freedom: The End of Communist Rule in Eastern Europe, Durham 1991 A. Marino, Triptic [w:] Momentul adevărului, red. I. Chimet, Cluj 1996 O. Gillet, Religion et nationalisme: L’Ideologie de l’Église orthodoxe roumaine sous le regime communiste, Brussels 1997 A. Michnik, A Specter Is Haunting Europe [w:] idem, Letters from Freedom: Post-Cold War Realities and Perspectives, red. Irena Grudzińska Gross, Berkeley 1998, s. 117 (oryginał: „Gazeta Wyborcza”, 9 V 1989) R.L. Tökés, Hungary’s Negotiated Revolution: Economic Reform, Social Change, and Political Succession, 1957–1990, Cambridge 1996 B.K. Király, Soft Dictatorship, Lawful Revolution, and the Socialists’ Return to Power [w:] Lawful Revolution in Hungary, 1989–1994, red. B.K. Király, Boulder 1995 I. Deák, The Lawful Revolution: Louis Kossuth and the Hungarians 1848–1849, London 2001, J. Kis, Between Reform and Revolution: Three Hypotheses About the Nature of the Regime Change. [w:] Lawful Revolution in Hungary, 1989–1994, red. B.K. Király, Boulder 1995, s. 53 K.-D. Opp, Some Conditions for the Emergence of Spontaneous, Nonviolent Revolutions [w:] Origins of a Spontaneous Revolution: East Germany, 1989, red. zbiorowa, Ann Arbor 1995, s. 225 J.F.N. Bradley, Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution: A Political Analysis, Boulder 1992 J.J. Linz, A. Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe, Baltimore 1996 D. Tudoran, Kakistocraţia, Chişinău 1998 L. Holmes, Post-Communism: An Introduction, Cambridge 1997 P. Kecskemeti, The Unexpected Revolution: Social Forces in the Hungarian Uprising, Stanford 1961 J. Kocka, The GDR: A Special Kind of Modern Dictatorship [w:] Dictatorship as Experience: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR, red. K.H. Jarausch, New York 1999, s. 22 R. Scruton, The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought, Basingstoke 2007 D. Petrescu, Conflicting Perceptions of (Western) Europe: The Case of Communist Romania, 1958–1989 [w:] Europa im Ostblock: Vorstellungen und Diskurse,1945–1991, red. J.M. Faraldo, P. Gulińska-Jurgiel, Ch. Domnitz, Cologne 2008, s. 199–220 K. Jowitt, Revolutionary Breakthroughs and National Development: The Case of Romania, 1944–1965, Berkeley 1971 S.P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, New Haven 1968 L. Holmes, Post-Communism: An Introduction, Cambridge 1997 D.M. Perry, From Opposition to Government: Bulgaria’s “Union of Democratic Forces” and its Antecedents [w:] Revolution auf Raten: Bulgariens Weg zur Demokratie, red. W. Höpken, München 1996, s. 34 R.J. Crampton, A Concise History of Bulgaria, Cambridge 2005 I. Ilchev, The Rose of the Balkans: A Short History of Bulgaria, Sofia 1995 R. Brubaker, Nacjonalizm inaczej: struktura narodowa i kwestie narodowe w nowej Europie, tłum. J. Łuczyński Warszawa–Kraków 1998 O. Nørgaard, S.L. Sampson, Poland’s Crisis and East European Socialism, „Theory and Society” 1984, t. 13, nr 6, s. 773–801 M.D. Kennedy, Professionals, Power and Solidarity in Poland: A Critical Sociology of Soviet-Type Society, Cambridge 1991 M. Lewin, Political Undercurrents in Soviet Economic Debates: From Bukharin to the Modern Reformers, London 1975 D.H. Aldcroft, S. Morewood, Economic Change in Eastern Europe since 1918, Aldershot 1995 G. Kolankiewicz, P.G. Lewis, Poland: Politics, Economics and Society, London 1988 B. Kamiński, The Collapse of State Socialism: The Case of Poland, Princeton 1991 M. Shafir, Romania – Politics, Economics and Society: Political Stagnation and Simulated Change, London 1985 J. Kornai, Evolution of the Hungarian Economy, 1848–1998, t. 2: Paying the Bill for Goulash- -Communism, Boulder 2000 D. Chirot, What Happened in Eastern Europe in 1989 [w:] The Crisis of Leninism and the Decline of the Left: The Revolutions of 1989, red. D. Chirot, Seattle 1991 , s. 4 W. Brus, Histoire économique de l’Europe de l’Est, 1945–1985, Paris 1986 J. Kornai, The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism, Oxford 1992 A. Bozóki, Introduction [w:] The Roundtable Talks of 1989: The Genesis of Hungarian Democrac, red. A Bozóki, Budapest 2002 , s. xix R.C. Tucker, Preface [w:] Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928–1941, red. R.C. Tucker, New York 1990, s. xiv–xv. A. Walicki, Marksizm i skok do królestwa wolności: dzieje komunistycznej utopii, Warszawa 1996 S. Wolle, DDR, Frankfurt am Main 2004 L. Kołakowski, Amidst Moving Ruins [w:] The Revolutions of 1989, red. V. Tismăneanu, b.m.w., 1992, s. 56 A. Brown, The Gorbachev Factor, Oxford 1996 A.C. Janos, East Central Europe in the Modern World: The Politics of the Borderlands from Pre- to Postcommunism, Stanford 2000 A. Yakovlev, Ce que nous voulons faire de l’Union Soviétique: Entretien avec Lilly Marcou, Paris 1991 T. Garton Ash, W imieniu Europy: Niemcy i podzielony kontynent, tłum. S. Kowalski, Londyn 1996 M. Howard Ross, Culture and Identity in Comparative Political Analysis [w:] Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture, and Structure, red. M.I. Lichbach, A.S. Zuckerman, Cambridge 1997 , s. 52 G.A. Almond, S. Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations, Newbury Park 1989 G.A. Almond, G.B. Powell Jr., Comparative Politics Today: A World-View, New York 1992 S. Verba, Comparative Political Culture [w:] Comparative Political Systems, red. L.J. Cantori, Boston 1974, s. 227. A. Brown, Introduction [w:] Political Culture and Political Change in Communist States, red. A. Brown, J. Gray, London 1977, s. 1. G.A. Almond, Communism and Political Culture Theory [w:] A Discipline Divided: Schools and Sects in Political Science, red. G.A. Almond, Newbury Park 1990, 158 K. Jowitt, New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction, Berkeley 1992 D. Pollack, J. Wielgohs, Introduction [w:] Dissent and Opposition in Communist Eastern Europe: Origins of Civil Society and Democratic Transition, Aldershot 2004, s. xv